I delighted in the music of Africa, the earliest of the slave plantation songs, the transformation into Christianity and all that Christianity brought to the lives of the Africans who were forced to come to America.

Carmen Jones was the first all-Negro film that became a great box-office success. It established the fact that pictures with Negro artists, pictures dealing with the folklore of Negro life, were commercially feasible. This was a sign of growth that had occurred in the United States and throughout the world.

I don't think that (U.S. President) George Bush...is a man of honor.

In the gun game, we are the most hunted. The river of blood that washes the streets of our nation flows mostly from the bodies of our black children.

I'm very familiar with poverty. I find it easy to be with, whether I'm in America or in Africa or in Asia. Wherever I go and find the environment of those who are living in poverty and resisting poverty is a great in which I have great comfort.

Without compromise repression would be defeated. Just as some cancers feed on hormones, compromise becomes the hormone of oppression.

I think there's a lot that the larger society could have been taught or can be taught, but I'm not sure - given how unyielding the larger society has been - that much has been learned.